The Prospect Handbook should arrive in the mail today from Baseball America. Very exciting.
As a refresher, here are the top ten Phillies prospects (pre Halladay deal) from Baseball America.
That’s Jason Heyward from the Braves on the cover (full size) with, from top to bottom on the right: Madison Baumgarner (Giants), Mike Moustakas (Royals), and Jarrod Parker (Diamondbacks).
10:43 am: The mail already came and no book. Maybe Monday.
Two former BlueClaws, Michael Taylor (#2) and Adrian Cardenas (#9) have been ranked among the top ten Oakland Athletics prospects by Baseball America. Kind of like the Philadelphia Athletics re-incarnated.
Taylor, of course, was a BlueClaw in 2008, where he had probably the best half of any hitter in team history (.361/10/50). He finished 2008 with Clearwater (.329/9/38), began 2009 with Reading (.333/15/65) and finished it with Lehigh Valley (.282/5/19) before being sent to Toronto in the Roy Halladay trade. He was then immediately traded to Oakland for third base prospect Brett Wallace.
He turned 24 in December and has a chance to win an Opening Day roster spot with the Athletics, perhaps as their everyday leftfielder. It’s rare that you see a guy cover four levels in two years, but that’s what Taylor did, and we wish him luck now that he has a clear path to the big leagues.
Cardenas was here in 2007, when, as a 19 year old second baseman, he hit .295/9/79 with the BlueClaws and made the Futures Game. A piano and guitar specialist, Cardenas hit .326 at Double-A Midland and .256 with Triple-A Sacramento.
Oakland got him in the Joe Blanton trade in 2008, and logically Cardenas will get a full shot at Triple-A in 2010. He just turned 22 in October.
Well not quite. Two former BlueClaws (and Phillies prospects), Jason Knapp and Carlos Carrasco, were ranked 6th and 7th respectively by Baseball America in their annual Indians prospect rankings.
Knapp and Carrasco went to Cleveland along with Lou Marson and Jason Donald in the deal that brought Cliff Lee to the Phillies back in July.
Knapp barely pitched for Lake County (in the SAL) after the trade (remember, he was on the DL with shoulder fatigue at the time of the trade) and the other three all switched dugouts in Lehigh Valley (when Columbus was in town). Carrasco and Marson played in the big leagues while Donald, stayed in AAA. He figures to be one of the former BlueClaws to make a big league debut in 2010.
An interesting question is where would Knapp and Carrasco have fit in among the Phillies prospects? Here is the Phillies prospect list, done before the Roy Halladay trade took #2, 3 and 4).
If I had to guess, Knapp would have been somewhere around 4 (either just ahead of or just behind Travis d’Arnaud), which would be 2 when you take out d’Arnaud, Michael Taylor and Kyle Drabek, who were traded. As for Carrasco, probably between 6 and 7 (Anthony Gose & Sebastian Valle).
(Photo: Waiting For Next Year…where by subheading is “when we won’t have a Cy Young winner to trade.” lol)
January 6, 2003…Gavin Floyd becomes the first current or former player to grace the cover of Baseball America.
Floyd, remember, was the “prospect star” on the 2002 BlueClaws team, not his now-more-well-known teammate Ryan Howard. He went 11-10 on the 2002 BlueClaws with a 2.77 ERA and 140 Ks in 166 innings pitched.
His presence on the cover in this issue was because Baseball America was unveiling their 2003 Phillies top ten prospect list, as follows:
Utley was drafted in 2000 and would have been an original BlueClaw, but because he was polished as a college player, he was one of the few guys to skip Lakewood and went straight to Clearwater in 2001.
Byrd and Madson were on Piedmont (in Kannapolis) in 2000, the year before the BlueClaws existed. With Brett Myers, they made the playoffs and Madson and Myers lost games two and three 1-0 to Delmarva in the first round under manager Greg Legg. Legger said last year that was the toughest playoff exit for him, 1-0 with two big leaguers in his rotation.
Buchholz was with Lakewood in 2001, and threw the first pitch in BlueClaws history.
Hamels went 6-1, 0.84 in 13 starts with Lakewood in 2003 before a promotion to Clearwater.
Howard didn’t really blow up as a prospect until he hit .304 with 23 home runs in the Florida State League in 2003.
Machado and Ramirez never played with Lakewood.
Baseball America has named the Phillies as their 2009 Organization of the Year. You can read the full article through their website here. But I wanted to share what I felt was the interesting part of Jim Salisbury’s story:
But it is widely believed, by everyone from Amaro to Manuel to Gillick, that the trade that ultimately put the team on a path to success was the one that sent Bobby Abreu, one of the most offensively gifted players in franchise history, to the Yankees in July 2006. The trade was part salary dump (the Phils saved $20 million), part investment in the Rollins-Utley-Howard core.
Gillick believed that Abreu had become complacent, and he feared other players were feeding off that.
“I think Jimmy and Chase were respectful, if that’s the word, of Bobby, and when he got out of here it set a different tone,” Gillick said.
Said Amaro: “That trade changed the mindset in the clubhouse. It gave people the opportunity to move forward. Also, you trade a player like that and the guys in the clubhouse look in the mirror and say, ‘Wow, they’ll trade anybody.’ ”
The Abreu trade opened a spot for Victorino in right field and gave the team some of the athleticism Manuel had wanted. It also opened an outfield spot that Gillick filled the following offseason with one of his best moves, the signing of free agent Jayson Werth. It was a classic take-a-shot Gillick move, as Werth had missed the 2006 season with a career-threatening wrist injury. In 2009, the Phils’ three starting outfielders, Victorino, Werth and Raul Ibanez, Amaro’s first free agent signing, all were all-stars.
This is really a great point, and not something you would immediately think of as a turning point, especially when the Phillies have not gotten any big league games from the players they brought back.
We caught up with John Manuel of Baseball America earlier for a Q&A in regards to the top ten Phillies prospect rankings (click here) put out by BA on Monday. We thank John as always for his time.
Question: You had Brown atop the rankings last year. Obviously he had some competition for that top spot, but what did he do to maintain that ranking?
Q: Were people you talked to surprised at the way Kyle Drabek rebounded from his surgery?
Q: He was in Lo-A 18 months ago, but he’s 24 now and can obviously hit. How close is Michael Taylor to the big leagues (considering he’s got a tough OF to crack)?
Baseball America has released their top ten Phillies prospect list, and John Manuel has done a bang-up job. Pretty much saw it as we did (here). Click here for an overview with information on bonuses, top prospects of the decade, and a projected 2013 lineup. The list below…
Rank, position, name, club(s) in 2009, with LAK)
Quick thoughts…
More notes on each of the top ten below the fold.
We’re going to take a shot at projecting the Phillies top ten prospects as ranked by Baseball America, who will unveil their Phillies rankings on Monday. First, a few quick notes on guys that were in the top ten last year that will not be there this year:
So, who are the big movers this year?
Other notes…
Onto the projections (this is how we think Baseball America will rank them)…
There you go.